Turgeon tries to keep Terps calm after two bad losses

COLLEGE PARK - The last 10 days couldn't have gone much worse for the Maryland basketball team.

After a 2-0 start in the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Terrapins dropped two straight - both by huge margins - to fall back to .500 in league play with Notre Dame coming to Comcast Center on Wednesday night.

Those two straight losses came on the road at the hands of two of the Atlantic Coast Conference's better teams - Pittsburgh and Florida State. But the troubling aspect of the losses was the margin of defeat. Maryland wasn't competitive in either game, losing 79-59 to the Panthers and 85-61 to the Seminoles.

Maryland hasn't suffered back-to-back 20-point losses in conference play since the 1992-93 season, when the program was still saddled with NCAA sanctions.

Turgeon isn't interested in looking back, however. He prefers to look forward. Consequently, he's trying to keep everyone calm in the wake of those two disastrous defeats.

"You talk about it, you learn from it," he said. "The great thing for us is we have Notre Dame coming in. It's a big name, a team that was picked ahead of us the league. They beat Duke, so they must be pretty good ... It's just a two-game slide. We've got to get better and play better (Wednesday) and get back on the plus side in the league."

Turgeon has a point. Four games into the conference season, Maryland is still 2-2. That modest record is good enough to place them tied with Duke for fifth in the ACC standings, which isn't bad considering three of the four league games so far have been on the road.

But the recent slump puts even more importance on Wednesday night's game against the Irish.

Notre Dame has had its problems as well, especially after star guard Jerian Grant left school because of an academic issue. Grant had been averaging 19 points and six assists per game and ranked among the leaders in the Atlantic Coast Conference in both categories.

Coach Mike Brey's team is 2-2 since Grant's departure, including a marquee win (something Maryland doesn't have) over Duke. Notre Dame has dropped its last two, however, including a home loss to N.C. State and a last-second road loss to Georgia Tech.

"We're trying to regroup a little bit after a tough one at Georgia Tech," Brey said.

Turgeon's trying to do the same thing with the Terrapins.

He predicted that Pitt and Florida State - would wind up among the top five teams in the conference at the end of the season, which is one reason he's taking the losses in stride.

"The big picture is we're 2-2 in the league and we've got a chance to be 3-2," he said. "We played three of the first four (league games) on the road. We've played two of the best (league) teams on the road. You just move forward and try to get better."

Turgeon even was willing to shrug off his team's defensive performance the last time out. Even though Florida State hit 16 of 24 from 3-point range against the Terrapins, Turgeon thought his team did a good job contesting shots.

"They made 16 (3-pointers). On 12 of 'em, we were shaking hands with them," Turgeon said. "I told the team afterward I wouldn't change our defensive game plan. They just got hot."

Turgeon's more concerned about getting the offense going. Maryland averages almost 73 points per game, but scored just 59 and 61 in the two most recent losses.

Point guard Seth Allen is still working his way back to full strength after missing two months with a broken foot, which has hurt Maryland's attack. Long-range shooter Jake Layman and Maryland's post players all have struggled to score of late, which also has hurt.

Layman, who scored in double figures six times in Maryland's first seven games, has scored just 20 points in the last three combined. Similarly, the post tandem of Charles Mitchell and Shaquille Cleare combined for just nine points total against Pitt and Florida State.

Better offensive execution, according to Turgeon, will solve all of those problems.

"If we run our system better and we screen better and we execute better, that's going to help us." he said. It's going to help everyone, not just Jake."

NOTES: Since Grant left school, senior point guard Eric Atkins has stepped up his play. Atkins is averaging 20.7 points and 6.7 assists in the last four games. Wednesday's game will be something of a homecoming for Atkins, who grew up in Columbia and played high school basketball at Mount St. Joseph.